There are a variety of Halloween
type wall coverings available, but they are not as easy
to put up as you might think. Most people do not
have completely bare walls in their home. Most walls have
pictures or other day-to-day decorations hanging on them
or windows that are covered by curtains. Our
solution is to make a facade that temporarily stands
against the wall to cover what's behind it.

We use Scene
Setters wall coverings to create facades for haunted houses,
castle walls, a creepy forest and pumpkin patches as part
of our Halloween scenes, in our haunted garage and as a Halloween party
decoration.
In this example we created a facade large enough to
cover a twelve foot wide area that was used to make a
vampire scene, but you can make any size adjustments to create facades of any
length. While one person can accomplish this project,
its far easier if there are two people. Once you build this facade it
can be stored flat for the next year.

The first thing you need to do is measure
the width of the wall or walls that you want to
be covered with the
Halloween wall facade, so that you know how much
materials you will need.

Most Scene Setters come in long, single piece,
four foot tall rolls, so you will need to start by trimming the wall covering
into the needed sizes. For glueing on paneling
you will want four foot long
pieces, plus a few extra inches to wrap around
the edges and onto the back.

Once you have enough pieces cut for your
project, lay a piece of paneling on
a flat surface. Using inexpensive paneling instead of
plywood or particle board keeps this prop
light-weight.

Pour some wallpaper paste into a paint roller
tray and then use a paint roller to apply
an even coat of wallpaper paste to the surface
of the upper half of the paneling. Use plenty of
paste, not enough and the covering will not
adhere. Make sure that you
apply
paste around the edges so that the wall covering
won't easily lift off the paneling.

Applying the wall covering can be difficult to
get it on straight, so what we do is roll-up a
single piece into a roll, leaving about six
inches unrolled. One person holds each end of
the roll, while another person takes the end and
carefully lays the top edge of the wall covering
over the top edge of the paneling, making sure
that it is straight and level.
The person holding the roll slowly moves back,
unrolling the roll while the other presses it
onto the paneling.

A sponge can be used every few inches
to push out any air bubbles and press the
covering into the. Once the first piece of
covering is on the panel, repeat the process on the
lower half of the paneling.

Once a panel is complete, set it aside and
repeat the process
until all panels are covered. Let the panels sit for a day
to insure that the wallpaper paste is completely
dry.

Since paneling is thin and
designed to be attached to a wall, it is very flexible
and does not stand-up straight. To fix this, we attach a
basic frame to made from the 2"x2" boards to the back of
the paneling.

Lastly, we attach all of the sections of paneling
together to make one long facade. To do this we
lay the panels wallpaper side down on a large
clean, flat surface, such as your garage floor
and push them together.

Make sure that you have
placed each one in the right direction or you
will end up with one or more sections
upside-down. Make sure that all edges are level
and firmly up against each other.

Use the tape to connect the panels together
using one long strip of tape, half on one panel
and the half on the other panel. Once you have a
strip of tape applied, use the sponge to press
the tape down. Trim off any excess tape at the
top and bottom with a pair of scissors or box
cutter.

Now you can place the facade against the wall it was
measured for and temporarily attach it to the wall using
double-sided tape or small nails. Bare in mind
that tape
may leave adhesive reside and nails will leave
small holes in your wall.